Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Rayden turns one!

Last year this time, my littlest prince was born. It was the first time I've gone through natural birth. It was indeed an awesome experience.

How time flies. Now he is one year old today.

The past year has not been easy for us as we had to cope with two children instead of one. A lot of adjustments had to be made. I remembered that Kyan had to adjust to having a new member, a littler one than he is, to the family,. He, of course, threw tantrums to get our attention. We would try to spend as much time as possible with him alone to let him know that we still love him. Although now he still refuses to share his toys with his brother, he'll show in other ways that he loves his brother still. Like the time we had to send Rayden to Aunt Peg's and him to Ah Ma's house, he kept asking where his "didi" was the whole day. I think he'd probably felt lonely without his brother around!

Food
Rayden used to be so chubby but after the bout of sickness with HFMD and other minor ailments, he's toned down in terms of weight. Although milk, apart from breastmilk, isn't exactly his cup of tea, he 'll still drink some every now and then. He loves to eat, from bread to biscuit to porridge! As long as it is food, he'll tell you "mum, mum" and demands to be fed. He loves to self-feed too and sometimes feed himself a tad too fast. He also knows how to associate the kitchen with food. Every morning when he wakes up, he'll point to the kitchen and mutter "mum, mum", indicating that he has to be carried there for his breakfast. Isn't he smart? *winks* Besides that, he'll show his anger if he is not allowed any food. He'll clench his fist and make noise!

Animal Lover - or rather "bird" lover
He is so amazed with birds! Each time he's outdoors, he'll point at the birds he can spot with his eyes. He loves dogs and cats too. Well, these are the common animals we usually see when we go out. On his first trip to the zoo, he was so excited at seeing so many animals, everything is "bird" or "dog" to him. We'll be at the enclosures looking at the animals when all of a sudden, he'll shout "bird" cos there are birds flying around. I'm surprised that he can actually mutter the word "bird", "cat" and "doggie" cos I don't remember Kyan being able to say that at his age.

Ball
He also loves to play balls! He'll throw the ball to you and wait for you to throw it back to him. He also knows how to say "ball" rather clearly.

Doodles
Because of Kyan, Rayden knows that a pen/pencil is for writing on paper. Each time you give him a pen and a piece of paper, he'll know to point the pen onto the paper and start dotting on it. Maybe because he has seen Kyan do that and thus " monkey see, monkey do".

Walking
Everyone tells me the 2nd child is quicker in terms of physical and language development. Rayden is faster than Kyan linguistically but not so physically cos he still can't walk! Kyan seemed to be able to walk unsteadily on his own at one year of age but not Rayden. He only stands on his feet but refuses to take a step forward unless you hold his hand.

Nevertheless, he's just so cute, in fact he's getting cuter by the day! He's so responsive to the people around him now. I know I have to cherish this stage cos he'll outgrow this very soon. Once he starts walking, he'll not be so independent to mummy then. Let's see if I'll yearn for another then.


Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Back to school...

Monday was especially tiring for me cos it is the first day of my teaching in school. I couldn't sleep the night before and hence, was zonked out the whole day. Teaching was fine but by afternoon, I was dead tired. The kids didn't have to wake up early today cos Asri was on leave. He was able to send them at a later time.

Tuesday was a challenging day. First, I had to send both kids in the morning so there were lots of things to get ready. While brushing Kyan's teeth, we had a conversation.

Mummy: I'm sorry that you had to wake up so early so that Mummy can go to work.

Kyan: - no response

Mummy: I want to earn lots of money so that we can go for a holiday.

Kyan: Go for holiday for what, mummy?

Mummy: Go for holiday to enjoy ourselves! Then we can bring Ah Ma too.

Kyan : And Ah Yi!

That's my sweet boy. He knows who are the dearest in the family.

I shall not talk about school and my horrifying experience with the P5 EM3s....

After school, I had to go to the centre for tuition till 9pm. Talk about working for long hours! I was so glad to see the kids after work. I missed them so much!


Sunday, April 20, 2008

Back to school...

I'll be busy for the next 5 weeks cos I'll be going to school as a flexi-adjunct teacher! I feel quite half-hearted about it. Excited cos of the money but hesitant cos of the kids. I don't mind working hard but the last thing I want to do is to short change the kids. They've to be in school by 7am on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I really do hope they are able to cope with the new routine.

Upset...

I've been giving tuition to this friend's child since beginning of this year. Recently, I do feel the strain as it's quite tiring to have this additional tuition after work at the centre. If I take cab home after this tuition, I can get home by 15 minutes - 8.15pm. But if I do that, which is always the case, I really don't earn anything at all. However if I take a bus back, then it's an hour before I get home-9pm and that's really late cos I can't really spend much time with the kids.

So I've decided to drop this tuition, but I'll still continue till SA1 which is like2 weeks later. So I smsed my friend on Friday, telling her that.

Just today I received an sms from her saying that I need not go for tuition anymore as she has found a tutor for her kid.

I was shocked. Just like that? She said that the new tutor will continue where I have left off.

I mean, it's really quite strange to stop tuition in the middle of revision, with just 2 more weeks to exams. Many questions were running through my mind - Did she think that I didn't do a good job with her kid? Was she angry that I had wanted to stop tuition just like that?

I know my conscience is clear- I have always given my best and I know I had done what I'm supposed to do. Perhaps my best wasn't good enough? I feel so upset, so disturbed.

Asri says to forget it cos my efforts were not appreciated. I really don't know what to say. Well, one thing's for sure, I'll never tutor any of my friend's kids again. It takes far too much effort to please both parent and making sure the child understands what you teach. And worse, not getting appreciated.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid and reading too much into this but that's how I feel right now.



Sunday, April 13, 2008

Kyan's progress

Kyan is progressing so rapidly in terms of his word and numerical knowledge! He takes such an interest in words and numbers that he can remember stuff that he has seen quite accurately. I'm so proud of him!

To add on to the previous list:

  1. Words that he can recognise:
  • Cat, bat, fat, hat (thanks to leapfrog)
  • MRT station names -Pasir Ris, Tampines, Eunos (thanks to ah yi)
  • His own full name, Rayden's, mum, dad (Once he told me that I am Mummy Julian Asri)
  • East, West (from hey diddle, diddle)
  • Bus
  • Sun
  • Car
  • His friends' names - Ariel, Kyna, Joy, Eve
  • milk
  • ice
  • Asri and Joyce (Isn't that cool?)
  • fish
  • stop
  • slow
  • let, met,
2. Numbers from 1 to 100


3. Timestable 10

4. Simple addition and subtraction (although he gets confused over whether to add or minus at times)
e.g
2 + 1 = 3
5 + 5 = 10
4 + 4 = 8
3 + 3 + 3 = 9
3 - 1 = 2

5. HE KNOWS MY HANDPHONE NUMBER!

6. He knows how to read 2 simple storybooks by memorising the sentences on each page!
  • My Camera
  • What is it?
7. He knows how to write Chinese characters like "ren2", "xiao3"
  • So he'll write "Xiao Rayden" or "Xiao Kyan"

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Lil' Rayden

He is so vocal now! His best words are "baa, baa" and he can sorta say "bird", which he always points to when we are downstairs. He's such a happy baby and I just love to watch him play. I realised that he observes Kyan when he is playing, then imitates him. When given plastic plates and spoons, he'll act as if he is cooking. Just this morning, I fell asleep on the bed after I sent Kyan to school. Rayden was happily flipping thru the pages of Kyan's storybook. When I woke up, I realised that he had bitten off a corner of the page and was chewing on paper! This boy!





Monday, April 7, 2008

The tale of the saga continues...(Part 2)

I kept both of them at home on Monday. Their fever was subsiding but not cleared yet.

On Tuesday, both were cleared of fever. *YAY*

Then came Wednesday, Rayden had developed this rash all over his face, body, hands and legs. I didn't think very much of it as I thought was probably the after-math effect of the antibiotics.

On Thursday, Kyan's fever came back and he was coughing very badly. Rayden had more rashes and he looked like an alien baby! I remembered that Kyan had this sort of condition before. It's called "fake measles". I called Doc Sim and he said he can't confirmed over the phone but I was told to wait for 2-3 days to see if the rashes will subside.




Friday saw us bringing Kyan to Doc Sim as his cough was really bad. He was given more medication and inhaler. Doc Sim confirmed Rayden as having "fake measles".

Over the weekend, Kyan's cough was so much better and Rayden no longer looked like some alien baby-he has gotten his porcelain smooth skin back again.

I hope the saga stops here. My energy is running out...






The tale of the saga continues...(Part 1 )

On 29 Mar 2008, I was teaching when my sister told me that Rayden had developed a fever. Asri brought some medicine for him and his fever went ding-dong at 38-39 degrees. Throughout the night we were sponging him and checking his temperature.

The next day, his fever soared to 40 degrees and Kyan also had fever. His was 39 degrees and he didn't have any appetite at all. My mum and I immediately brought them to KK hospital. Without having to wait, we were asked to seek consultation at the "red"door as ours was an urgent case. The doctor examined Kyan and said that it was probable a viral infection. He was more concerned over Rayden because of his age. He sent Rayden for a blood test, x-ray and neubuliser puffs. He screamed his head off the blood test and x ray. Poor boy, my heart felt so pained. The doctor said that both of them probably were infected by the same viral infection. He said the fever will probably continue for a few days before it clears completely. They were prescribed a ton of medication. By the time we got out of KK, we looked as if we had gone shopping there with a big bag of medication!